Marble Cake: Revisited

My mom, a huge marble cake fan, asked me to bake some for her.
I baked marble cake two weeks ago using a recipe by Yasa Boga, and this time I'm trying the recipe from Martha Stewart. I was lazy to measure with the scale -- baking Martha's version seemed hassle-free because the measurements were in cups -- and I also want to know what's the difference taste and texture-wise. Martha's recipe lists buttermilk as one of the ingredients.

I used half of the batter for cupcakes and another half for the old fashioned loaf cake.

Using this recipe, the texture is less buttery than the Yasa Boga version, making it lighter for tea time snack.

I also love the fact that it's not too sweet.
I basically don't fancy sweet things, especially overly sweet American cupcakes. That makes me almost always substitute granulated sugar with caster sugar, sometimes less from the amount shown in the ingredients.

Marble Cake
from Martha Stewart

Makes one 9-by-5-inch loaf

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
• 1 3/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup buttermilk, room temperature
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan; set aside. Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in vanilla. Add flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the buttermilk and beginning and ending with the flour. Set aside 1/3 of the batter.

In a bowl, mix cocoa and 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water with a rubber spatula until smooth. Add the cocoa mixture to the reserved cake batter; stir until well combined.

Spoon batters into the prepared pan in 2 layers, alternating spoonfuls of vanilla and chocolate to simulate a checkerboard. To create marbling, run a table knife (or wooden skewer) through the batters in a swirling motion.

Bake, rotating the pan halfway through, until a cake tester comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes. Transfer pan to a rack to cool 10 minutes. Turn out cake from pan and cool completely on the rack. Cake can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.